Not all of Santa's elves live in the North Pole - one of them turns out hand-carved dollhouses, toy sleighs and miniatures chairs in his garage behind Lynn Woods Elementary School.

After working third shift at the GE River Works plant for 40 years, Richard Gallant retired and wondered how to spend his time while his wife, Pamela, pursued her interests. Childhood memories of his father gave him an answer.

Gallant lived on Varnum Street as a boy and his father, Joseph, and grandfather, Stanislaus Duchnowski, taught him how to estimate carpentry dimensions, and measure and cut wood.

Gallant thumbed through crafts magazines for ideas and started building projects from sight a year and a half ago without referring to step-by-step instructions or detailed measurement guides. He built a wishing well and birdhouses, stunning his wife, who was unaware of his talents with a saw and hammer.

"It's amazing. He does not work from a pattern. People will say, 'Do you think you can make this for me,' and he'll do it," Pamela Gallant said of her husband of 41 years.

Outfitting his 10-by-14-foot garage with a sander, band saw and neatly arranged shelves stacked with pine wood and tools, Gallant expanded his creations, turning out projects and making some mistakes.

"I've botched a lot and blundered, and even kicked the walls a couple of times," he said.

He crafted a simple, doll-sized sleigh that caught the attention of a relative with a daughter who owned American Girl dolls. Gallant built a triple-decker bunk bed with the little beds scaled to the dimensions of the popular dolls.

Pamela Gallant said sleighs are among the most popular creations her husband has crafted.

"My two best friends bought them from him," she said.

He built a larger sled and branched out into building a miniature folding chair constructed from pine pieces cut and sanded and then fitted together with wooden pegs. The holidays might see him turn out a few miniature wooden reindeer.

"I get a mental image and use my own dimensions," he said.

The 65-year-old Vietnam veteran brushes off offers to buy his creations, preferring to give them away or craft them as gifts. His son, Brad, a West Peabody resident, talked Gallant out of his plan to build a dollhouse for granddaughters Madison and Taylor and their cousin, Hannah. "He said they would just rip it apart," Gallant said.

He has other holiday creations in mind and said his average project takes two or three days. So far, his workshop has been a well-kept secret - a labor of love appreciated mostly by his wife and the local letter carrier who stops in to view Gallant's creations.

"I build something and when I finally put it together, I can say, 'I did that,'" he said.